Monthly Archives: June 2018

It’s been a busy, busy few weeks and poor old Brian of Morbius has suffered a bit. Sorry about that. I feel for you folks, most of whom don’t actually read this anyway. On the plus side I have finally finished the book, although it needs chapter titles (this morning’s job), more footnotes and a whole lot of pruning. Lengthwise it’s currently longer than Prisoner of Azkaban but not quite as long as The Half Blood Prince. I may post a sample chapter here at some point, purely out of vanity.

We have several videos, a couple of think pieces and a stack of memes to get through, so let’s not waste any more time. What’s been happening over the past few weeks? Well, we’ve had several birthdays – notably Ian McKellen and Jojo Siwa, inventor of a particular type of headgear.

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Meanwhile poor old Jodie Whittaker didn’t have a birthday, but everyone thought she did – thanks to a mix-up on the internet that she had clarified in an interview that people thankfully managed to drag out when the debate was still raging. If any of you are interested, Jodie shares her presumed birthday with my mother and her real one with me. Make of that what you will.

Catherine Tate also turned fifty recently – at least she might have done. We marked the occasion in Metro with a series of favourite characters, but when I came to post this on Twitter I had a woman contact me to plug her charity (which I suppose I can live with), of which Catherine is patron, and also tell me that I’d got the year wrong. “We got caught out when she turned forty,” she said.

Which is all fair enough, I suppose. She may be right. In response I’d say that if Wikipedia, IMDB, the Guardian and every single fan site I can find tells me Tate is fifty, then for the purposes of trending she can bloody well be fifty. If I’m wrong I am, at least, in good company.

What else happened? Oh yes, this did.

And, um, this.

No comment.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that David Tennant isn’t the only former Doctor to be accosted by fans at random moments.

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The Eleventh Doctor’s been in the news quite a bit, actually, given that news has been announced that they’re bringing back the Celestial Toymaker.

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And dodgy story ideas may, indeed, have been the real reason Christopher Eccleston jumped ship.

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The big news, of course, was that royal wedding. Which was splendid to watch, although I did get a little uncomfortable with all the virtue signalling on Twitter – “Hey, isn’t it great that black people are at Windsor Castle! Woo hoo!” This all came, I noticed, chiefly from white people – it’s the sort of patronising gumph I saw quite recently in Get Out, which has a bunch of similar scenes where elderly white men tell the young black photographer how much they love Tiger Woods. Don’t get me wrong, it was a thumping good sermon (and wonderful to see all the dignitaries twisting in their seats), but can’t we not just enjoy it on its own terms, rather than looking at the skin tones?

But it occurred to me, when I was watching it, that the Royal Wedding was rather like the unveiling of a new Doctor. Months of speculative buildup and complaining from the naysayers, everyone’s obsessed with the outfit and nobody can figure out how James Corden got involved.